


divenire

by heartsfilthylesson



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pregnancy, murder baby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-09 14:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4351613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsfilthylesson/pseuds/heartsfilthylesson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She presses her palm against her still-flat stomach; it won’t be long before it grows and clothes are harder to find. Armani does not have a maternity line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For an anon on tumblr who requested "Bedelia finds out she's pregnant" fic

Bedelia minds her body dutifully and consistently:  SK-II and La Mer and La Prairie; morning yoga and a careful diet (a task made inadvertently easier by Hannibal and his proclivities) and supplements. But, try as she might to keep age at bay, there is no stopping the passage of time. The lines around her lips broaden  and the creases between her fair brows deepen and folds of skin appear where there were none. Those she can conceal beneath layers of foundation and couture dresses. They do not bother her. The thick veins of her delicate hands and the unbidden flush that often rushes to her cheeks are harder to disguise so she learns to live with them.

Age and the way a woman’s body changes with it is why she does not immediately notice.

“Congratulazioni, Signora.” The smile on the handsome young doctor’s face is bright and sincere. Bedelia would like to dig her nails into his cheeks until it disappears, until blood seeps out and runs between her fingers.

 _Dieci settimane._ She remembers the missed menstrual cycles she blamed on perimenopause and the nausea she blamed on her eating habits and gives a bark of laughter, dry and mirthless. The doctor exchanges a brief, confused look with the hovering nurse. “Signora Fell?”

“I’m just so thrilled,” she says and does not know if it’s truly a lie. She slips the lab results into her Ferragamo purse. “Grazie.”

At home, she pours herself of a glass of Sangiovese. She presses her palm against her still-flat stomach; it won’t be long before it grows and clothes are harder to find. Armani does not have a maternity line.

She never wanted children and thinks Hannibal feels the same. But they will have one–a cannibal’s get, a murderess’ spawn. A little girl with blonde curls and brown eyes, the sister-daughter Hannibal lost twice: once devoured and once executed.

She pours the wine down the sink.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a second anon who requested "Bedelia telling Hannibal' she's pregnant."

“Bedelia.” Hannibal’s questioning gaze lingers on her face for an uncomfortably long moment. He clocks the artfully composed platter of oysters and her glass of sauvignon blanc, neither of which she’s touched. Concern, much too genuine to be real, is etched across his fine features. “Are you unwell?”

“Unwell,” she repeats, spearing a blackcurrant with her salad fork. The berry is so sour it’s nearly bitter –a perfect match for her mood, she thinks and lets it sit on her tongue before swallowing with a drink of water. Her left hand goes to her stomach, fingers splayed atop silk brocade, feeling for a slight curve, for the first revealing sign of a pregnancy Hannibal’s not aware of but finding none. “Not quite.”

Hannibal hums, unconvinced, but does not press the matter. He watches her closely for the rest of their supper.

Later, as she plays the last few trills of Prokofiev’s Toccata, Hannibal sits beside her on the piano bench. Vexed by his intrusion, she gives an uncharacteristic huff: she needs time alone, time to think, time to plan. If Hannibal notices, he does not comment on it.

“I’d forgotten you’re much better than I,” he says, a tiny smile curving his lips. His admission would ordinarily delight her –Hannibal Lecter does not easily declare another’s superiority– but she is much too preoccupied for more than a murmured _thank you._

“I thought we might have a glass of grappa.” He reaches for her hands and places them on the keyboard, settles his larger ones above. She lets him lead her through the first few bars of Arabesque before pulling away. The errant notes remind her he still doesn’t know of her  _condition._

“No, grazie.”

She can tell her refusal is unexpected and she can tell he will inquire on her health again so she speaks first.

“Hannibal.” A cold drip of fear trickles down her spine as she considers her next words and his reaction to them.He could kill her and her unborn child in an instant and make a beautiful meal of them both. Bedelia longs for that glass of grappa now, for the way alcohol softens the edges and lessens the load. Perhaps he does not need to know, perhaps she can leave him and Florence behind. _And become Hannibal’s quarry: plump and fattened and ready for slaughter,_  a darker but infinitely more rational part of her brain adds. She shudders at the thought. Then, before she can stop herself, she tells him. “I’m pregnant.”

Mouth hanging slightly open and eyes wide, Hannibal makes quite a sight. It is not often he looks confounded and though it does not truly ease her dread, it comforts her.

“What do you wish to do?” He asks and he sounds so sincere, so caring she might laugh. And she does, a mirthless bark of laughter that echoes in the cavernous room.  Confusion and apprehension flash in Hannibal’s eyes and she’s reminded of this morning at the doctor’s office, of the _ginecologo_ and his similar expression.

“I don’t know,” she says, breathless but relieved, still alive. “I never considered children.”

Hannibal drapes an arm about her shoulders, draws her close until her face is pressed against his chest.  “And now?”

She’s not sure when she started crying but she wipes at the tears with the heel of her hands. “Now I will have one.”

“Yes,” Hannibal says, his breath ruffling the fine hairs at her temple, hand sliding up and down her bare arm before resting it across her stomach. “I suppose we will.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested: "Bedelia goes into labour and Hannibal freaks out."

“Ah, fuck.” There’s a forkful of dacquoise aux noisettes halfway to her mouth. It slips from her fingers and lands on a hand-painted dessert plate with a loud clang. A vintage Flora Danica. He hopes it won’t chip. “Fuck.”

Hannibal sets his own fork down and tilts his head. The crude language is unlike her, the strain of alarm in her voice is too. “Bedelia?”

“Amniotic sac rupture,” she says, reaching for the table with both hands. Silver and glass and bone china rattle when she rises. “My water just broke.”

_Oh._  Air leaves his lungs with alarming speed and a tremor travels up and down his spine. His profession and diversions have trained him to react quickly and appropriately but tonight he can’t move, he can barely breathe. “You’re only thirty-seven weeks.”

Bedelia walks a few paces, a hand on her swollen stomach. There’s a wet stain blooming across her orchid dress. She stops to look at him, eyes narrowed. “It’s hardly unusual.”

He supposes it’s not but he is nearing fifty and he is going to be a father. There will be an infant to care for sooner than expected –they’re not ready, not yet. For the first time in many years, his stomach twists and his hands shake and cold sweat trickles down his forehead.  _Ospedale._  They have to go to hospital. He stands, spilling his amarone on the ecru tablecloth and on his lap. 

“I’ll get your valise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as suggested by emmyeccentric on tumblr, i'm (un)officially making this "the murder baby pregnancy chronicles." bless her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will finds out about murder baby.

“What exactly do you mean, Bedelia?” Will rubs his jaw, prickly hair rough beneath his palm. He forgot to shave again. “This isn’t a game to me.” **  
**

Bedelia’s pink stained lips curve into a smile that does not reach her eyes. “I disagree.”

Will exhales a laugh. They’re too alike, Hannibal and her. He would tell her as much but they’re interrupted before he gets a chance.

“Mama!” A little girl runs toward Bedelia, a long golden plait flying behind her. She jumps onto his psychiatrist’s lap and wraps her small arms about her neck. “Mama.”

A young woman walks in a moment later. “Ms. Du Maurier. I’m so sorry. She just ran off,” she says, sounding both embarrassed and slightly out of breath.

“It’s fine,” Bedelia tells her, gaze fixed on Will as she rubs circles on the girl’s back. “You may leave us.”

He turns his head, watches the woman walk away with another mumbled apology. When he looks toward Bedelia again, the girl is standing beside her chair. She can’t be older than two.

“Who is she?” He asks though he’s certain he knows the answer.

“My daughter,” Bedelia says and rises.  “Helena.”

They have the same hair, the same nose, the same lips. It’s the eyes that set them apart.

“Is she…” He swallows hard, feels his voice breaking. “Is she his?”

She picks up her daughter and settles her on her hip. “What do you think?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for a prompt on tumblr: Hannibal and Bedelia have a teenage daughter

It feels like only yesterday she was putting ribbons in her daughter’s hair and letting her have sweets before supper, like only yesterday they walked hand in hand to the plaza and read together before bed. Now Helena’s sixteen and crying because she’s in love with her best friend, because she kissed her and was rejected. Children grow up too fast. **  
**

(Bedelia remembers often hearing those words years and years ago and briefly wonders if she’s finally turned into her mother.)

“Mother, what do I do?” Helena asks as Hannibal walks into their living room with a bottle of red wine and a platter of dark chocolate. Bedelia, having no answer, is gratefull for the interruption.

“Here.” He hands her a glass of Madeira and sits beside her on the sofa. “You’ll feel better.”

Helena drinks her wine too quickly, nodding as Hannibal speaks of unconsummated love affairs and unreturned affections, of Dante and Berlioz. Bedelia’s almost certain all Helena wants is silence but their daughter is too polite to say as much.

“Thank you,” she says after awhile, wiping at tears with the heel of her palm.“But I think I’ll sleep now.”

Bedelia smiles and wishes there were something she could do or say to fix the situation, to take Helena’s pain away. But all she can offer is a promise to talk in the morning.

 

\--

 

“I can’t imagine you like that,” Hannibal says, placing his hands on her shoulders. She stops dabbing cream on her face to tilt her head and raise an eyebrow.

“Like what?”

Hannibal smiles at her, minute and indulgent, and the lines around his mouth deepen, become more noticeable. “Sixteen and heartbroken.”

“Of course not.” She removes the lid of an extraordinarily expensive anti-ageing cream and applies it to her neck. “But I can imagine you.”

He laughs and runs his fingers through her hair. “Can you?”

“Of course. She gets that from you,” she says and it’s both a taunt and not. Hannibal and Helena are both the emotional sort, prone to long stretches of melancholy and unrelenting sadness. 

“Perhaps,” he tells her, leaving his spot behind her to search for his pyjamas. “Not a terrible thing to inherit”

She doesn’t have to tell him she’s glad it’s his eyes and sentimentalism, not his proclivities and tastes, that their sweet daughter inherited. “Perhaps.”

“She’s sixteen, Hannibal,” she says after a few silent minutes, watching him get ready for bed through the mirror, the same routine of nearly two decades together slowed by age and fatigue. “And we’re…”

“Old,” he finishes for her.

“Yes.” Sometimes she forgets they’re past sixty now, wrinkled and weary, caring for a girl who could be their granddaughter. “Geriatric almost.”

He stands behind her again, bends down to kiss her shoulder. “But not yet,” he says, lips brushing her skin, and she shivers. “Let’s go to bed.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title means "becoming" in Italian. I was listening to a Ludovico Einaudi piece with the name and it seemed fitting enough. I guess.


End file.
